What to Know
On the morning of April 1, incoming UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Devin Duncan received a text asking him if Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was coming to campus. Why? The student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, had published an article with the following headline: “Trump orders Alcohol Law Enforcement in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents.”
“Last Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he would be sending the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement to its next high-crime destination: Chapel Hill, North Carolina,” the article begins.
It was a satire article published as part of the Daily Tar Heel’s annual April Fools’ edition. The problem, according to some students and campus groups, is that it wasn’t funny. In fact, it was terrifying.
That story was part of a slew of satirical news items from the Daily Tar Heel, with headlines like “UNC brings back DEI — for whites,” “The new plan for the Dean Dome — a two-stadium solution” and “Hubert Davis rushes to find summer internship.” Davis is the recently fired men’s basketball coach at UNC. In the initial email blast of the “DTH At a Glance” newsletter, the articles were not clearly labeled as satire.
“I had almost thought the Daily Tar Heel had been hacked,” Duncan said. “To read some of those articles, they were very unsettling, disrespectful, and insensitive.”
The editor-in-chief, Alli Pardue, published an official apology later that same day, and the stories about ICE and the Dean Dome have been taken down. Still, Duncan says it took the student journalists too long to react to the outrage.
“While we stand by our belief in the importance of satire writing, we undeniably missed the mark here — big time,” Pardue wrote in a statement to The News & Observer. “We did not package this content with enough consideration and care, and it caused real harm to the very communities we work to uplift and platform.”
Campus organizations like Students United for Immigrant Equality and the Black Student Movement posted statements condemning the articles. Students took to TikTok and Instagram to express their outrage.
Current student body president Adolfo Alvarez issued a statement as well.
“At a moment when Black enrollment at UNC is declining, and DEI initiatives are under systemic attack, joking about ‘DEI for whites’ is a slap in the face,” Alvarez wrote. “It mocks the students who are currently fighting just to feel like they belong on this campus.”
The university itself posted on social media: “We understand your concerns. @dailytarheel is an independent news organization that is not affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the organization directly.”
Phoebe Martel, an investigative reporter at the Daily Tar Heel, said she was disturbed by the articles.
“I think their intention was to do satire in a way that was making fun of the people in power,” Martel said. “It definitely did not translate that way. Gaza and ICE, these are very sensitive and deep personal topics for people. I hope that they all learn something from this.”
Meredith Clark, associate professor of race and political communication in the Hussman School of Journalism, said her heart sank when she saw the articles.
“Political satire is very difficult to do. And it’s even more difficult to do well,” Clark said. “… There’s a difference in being knowledgeable about a state of affairs and then being empathetic to the people who are connected to it quite directly. And I think that’s where you’re seeing a missed connection.”
“The other thing I will say about this is that journalists are among the groups of people in this world who make their mistakes in the arena, our mistakes are amplified for the world in ways that other people’s aren’t,” Clark said. “For journalism students who are practicing and learning their craft in public, everyone knows about the mistakes that you make. Everyone knows about the lapses in judgment, and you have to deal with consequences in a way that other students and other practitioners do not.”
The Duke Chronicle also published satire articles on Wednesday, on topics like Jan. 6, ill-attended campus protests, sexual harassment education on campus, and Republicans inviting Kid Rock to campus.
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Jane Winik Sartwell; The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. (TNS) | © 2026 The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.). Visit www.heraldsun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
